Doctor Bonesaw
by vandalvagabond
Summary: One normally wishes to see their favorite fiction during the time of "canon." I didn't get that luxury nor did I want it. I wanted something spicier to happen... But fixing up All For One might have been a stupid idea.
1. Prologue

The existence of the Symbol of Peace pointed at a lot of questions that one might not make at the moment of hearing or meeting said symbol.

How did you come to be the Symbol of Peace?

Why was the Symbol of Peace necessary?

And more questions that typical people might ask.

Me?

I didn't have those questions (didn't have time for them), because when I entered this world with a age-regressed body upon a battlefield I had no recognition of (second place I came to), I saw All for One wounded deeply … and All Might dying without anyone to help him.

Wearing a labcoat like some badass wannabe, I stood over All Might as he tried to breathe. Tried being the keyword here, because all he did was gurgle with blood in his lungs and stomach.

I didn't see the Symbol of Peace that everyone else saw. I saw the man who would struggle to keep his title aloft with nothing but his willpower. I was disgusted and horrified.

Being horrified was simple enough. All Might was dying.

Being disgusted was something that resulted from my own bias. I saw All Might and knew that he and his cohorts would hide his injuries. All Might, instead of doing the logical thing when such a decision was necessary, would go out to be the hero.

"You poor fucker," I muttered out loud as I walked over the rubble and debris of the ruined building where the battle must have taken place. It wasn't raining, though if it did, then it would have been perfect thematically for the moment of a dying hero.

All Might stirred and looked up. "S-Shounen?"

Ah, he's speaking Japanese.

"Can't understand Japanese for crap, idiot," I said as I sat down next to him. It was a lie, but I felt more comfortable speaking English. And I was pretty stressed from what I was about to do.

Nothing like diving head first into a new situation, eh?

I reached into my pockets and pulled out two scalpels. All Might saw them but didn't move, probably because he didn't have the strength to move. "Four minutes before any help for you comes… but two minutes before you pass out and another two minutes after that before you start to suffer the effects of hypoxic."

"T-That is…?" he asked me in nearly fluent English, though stuttering because … you know, dying?

"Damage to the brain caused by lack of oxygen supply."

"A-Ah."

I sighed. "Ain't really giving you a choice here, but I'm gonna be performing surgery on you. Hopefully, I can tinker something from your fat." I rummaged around the pockets, looking for any painkillers and only found a bottle of water and Tylenol . "... Better than nothing." I opened All Might's mouth, poured some water, and a 500 mg pill into his mouth. "Swallow."

He did.

I washed my hands, crushed a pill, and sprinkled it over the biggest wound on his torso. "Can't let you be infected." He hissed a little. "Sorry, but you need to breathe for me until I'm done with the surgery. So I can't put you out of your misery."

"I-It's fine."

Then the blades of my scalpels cut into his flesh.

**-VVG-**

When Toshironi Yagi woke up, it was to the ceiling of a typical hospital. It was not a sight he thought he would be seeing after Nana's death.

"He's awake!"

There was a rush of feet and Yagi found himself surrounded by people looking over him from the rail and edges of his hospital bed. He looked around.

"G-Good morning," he said hoarsely.

"You imbecile," Gran Torino grunted out.

"Ha ha …" Yagi coughed weakly. "Sorry for worrying you all." He looked around. "Where is the boy who saved me?"

"... What boy, All Might?" Sir Nighteye asked, speaking up. "There was no one else there."

Yagi looked at them with a frown. "The boy. The one who performed the surgery on me." Everyone looked at each other before turning back to him. "... Where is All for One?"

Everyone looked around uneasily. Then Gran Torino finally answered.

"Gone. He was gone when we arrived."

**-VVG-**

"... Where am I?"

"In my cozy little space," someone replied in English.

Slowly, Shigaraki pushed himself up and found that his eyes that All Might had literally punched out were still okay, if extremely blurry and dry.

"Are you my savior?" he asked back in English.

"No. I am a fan of a true hero. Happy to see that English still remains the lingua franca."

The second statement was odd. Very odd. "... I see. Then why am I here and not in prison? If you are All Might's fan, then a prison should be where I am waking up."

There was a childish giggle. "I said I'm a fan of a true hero, not All Might." Shigaraki snapped his face forward and saw a figure enter his field of vision. "And all heroes need their villains."

That was a degrading statement. He wasn't someone's villain to be defeated. He was -.

… he was a ruined man now. Not completely ruined but almost.

"Who are you?"

The figure seemed to ponder on that with a childish hum.

"I am what I am, and I am here because of who I am," he began. "But now that I am here, I'm unsure."

"You haven't answered my question yet," Shigaraki replied as he stood up. He saw but his vision must really be blurry because-.

All of his sensing quirk screamed at him. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. His Infrared quirk saw a space twisted beyond recognition. His Limited Clairvoyance quirk saw only this twisted space of impossibilities despite the fact that the quirk in question had over a kilometer in range.

His eyes, which he first though blurry, saw a single figure in perfect clarity but the world around him was still blurry.

"... I think my name is supposed to be Tenko, but I was Alan before that," the child said with a malevolent smile. "But I think a simpler name will do. Call me Bonesaw. I think it's a title I'm going to change people's perspective on."

Shigaraki was still cautious. This child in front of him wore no mask and stood casually, but there was an air about him that all of his senses rumbled against.

"I see. Will you be my ally, then? Who else but I could give All Might the villain they need?" Appealing to the boy's ideology like this wasn't the first time he tried this.

"Nope."

The child chose death, then. A shame he couldn't be left alive, because he was too powerful.

"That was fast, but then why save me if you know who I am?"

Vandal pondered on that.

Seeing how the boy was distracted, Shigaraki launched himself forward with a propulsion quirk and his All for One shot out from his hand, making connection with the boy's chest-.

And nothing.

The boy saw the quirk projection from him and frowned.

"That was not nice." The boy reeled a fist back, and Shigaraki moved to dodge as his senses screamed for him to do so. He jumped backward but he didn't move away despite feeling the winds ruffle his clothes.

"?!"

"You must be really tired if this is the best thing you came up with, All for One!" Then the boy punched.

The tiny fist struck with the same amount of force that All Might punched with, and Shigaraki screamed as he flew back and then smashed into a wall that he couldn't see. He fell down to his bottom and groaned.

"You really are a scum, if the first thing you do after asking someone's name is to attack them, especially more so since that someone just saved your ass," the child continued but it was speaking an older version of English curse words.

Shigaraki stood up, trembling from the blow he'd just received. "Are you like me?" he asked, genuinely curious despite the pain and the situation. "You … take and give quirks?" It was the only explanation that fit which would prevent his All for One from taking the child's quirk.

Vandal snorted. "No, I just have immunity to anything that might change how my power works," he replied. "And you know what? I thought I could play with you a little, but you're clearly not up for it. Your typical villainous nature is making this boring and cliche. I thought you would be something more than … this," the child said as he gestured to him.

It irked Shigaraki to hear disappointment directed at him from a child who couldn't know the things he'd just lost.

All Might and his friends had worn down everything he had built over the last three decades, and this child, who knew nothing about the sweat of his allies and subordinates for a dreamland to call their own, blood spilled for the sake of growth, and hundreds of hours poured into plans spent to build his organization, looked down on him?

"You are insignifi-"

"argh. Please don't fucking monologue. And were you about to say insignificant after I just healed you and then handed your ass to you? You know what, I'm leaving. Bye."

And then the child was gone, disappearing like a vivid mirage. The warped space shattered along with the child's disappearance, and Shigaraki found himself standing alone in an abandoned house.

His cheeks and the corners of his lips twitched.

"... Tenko or Bonesaw. I will have you learn what it means to irk me."

**-VVG-**

With a silent hiss and nary a special effect, I found myself back in the room where I had first seen.

This was the room of Shimura Tenko, the boy that I had taken over.

It was here that I made two decisions. The first had been to see All Might, and I had been exactly on time to save the idiot.

The second decision…

I opened the door, and walked out of my room and into the corridor.

"Mom, dad, can we talk?"

The Shimura matriarch and the patriarch, disheveled and exhausted out of their minds, both looked up from the dinner table, and then froze when they saw my form, wearing a labcoat, holes in the shirt Shigaraki punctured in an attempt to get my "quirks," and, perhaps most importantly, the blood. Though they didn't know it and perhaps because they didn't know it, the blood wasn't mine.

"T-Tenko-!" Shimura Jinsu, the kind and encouraging matriarch, was the first to respond. She leapt out of her chair and brought her hands all over me, trying to find the injury that didn't exist. I had a body that was bulletproof in all layers. My skin, hair, eyes, muscles, bones, and even my "squishy" organs were all bulletproof.

Then she wrapped me in a hug, obviously shocked by my appearance.

"Tenko, where were you?!" Shimura Kotaro, the unwise yet well meaning patriarch asked, tears in his eyes.

I just smiled for them and they hugged me.

This was nice.

One fact that was left out by my "insertion" into this universe was the fact that whoever had done the insertion had performed the action unorthodoxically. I hadn't been "downloaded" into a growing child or even born as Tenko with my mind intact and dominant.

Because as far as this world was concerned, Shimura Tenko had been missing for almost a year and had not triggered a Bad Quirk Activation Event as an emotionally unstable child. The only reason I knew this was because this fact - as well as All Might's state of being - had been made known to me upon arrival like an airport announcement only I could hear.

I focused on my new parents that my new body and memories felt a genuine childish love for.

"I'm home… and I'm sorry."

For saving All for One, that was. I would never say it out loud and I would kill Shigaraki if he ever said it out loud, too. This nation needed a true hero, but a true hero can only exist when they had a good enough of a rival.

But if that rival risked my new life and family, then I would kill them and everyone involved, including the hero.

Everything was worth less than the happiness of my new family.

"Mom, dad, I have something to tell you. You might want to sit down."


	2. Illegal Medical Practice

It had been a year since the appearance of the mysterious boy villain, Doctor Bonesaw. This villain … it was hard to call him a villain, not when the boy was just using his quirk to help people. In fact, Doctor Bonesaw was always helping the people in the slums, most of whom could not afford to pay the regular hospital fees.

Snatch thought that it was good of Doctor Bonesaw to do so, but disagreed with the boy's refusal to get pro license for his practice. Using unknown quirks to help people was dangerous, after all. The point of a pro license was also to find out every detail of one's quirk and to show that they were competent in its use. An active quirk users without a pro license who was not in danger was someone who was doing something wrong.

Especially because the villain boy was doing something medical with it without a license of any kind on top of being a figure that many "free quirk use" supporters were using as their mascot.

So here he was in the Nishitsuga Slums, a part of the Chiba city that was destroyed by a rampant quirk user years ago, trying to find that boy.

Most of the homes in this slum was made out of discarded thin metal roofing material fashioned into walls. Most of these homes as a result did not have good insulation.

Snatch vowed mentally to send some relief effort to this slum even if most of the other heroes and even the government didn't. Watching a kid running with tattered shoes did not make his slowly aging heart beat well.

"You will not take him," an elderly voice spat at him scornfully.

Snatch stuttered to a stop and saw a group of thugs … and an old lady with a walking stick. Actually, now that he stopped to look, the thugs weren't thugs so much as a ragtag group of everyone from this slum in one heterogeneous mixture of five people.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone, obasan," he replied earnestly. "I am just here to-"

"To take the good doctor from us," someone who looked like a student spat back. "The only doctor from all of Tokyo who comes to help us, and you want to take him away."

"He is illegally using quirks in public," Snatch tried to reason. He could see some of the other heroes from different agencies, all gathered for the purpose of apprehending Doctor Bonesaw, have similar problems. "I know that he isn't a bad person -"

Snatches' eyes widened when a group of the slum folks physically jumped a hero, Erasurehead, and kept themselves latched to the underground hero. Then one of them shouted at others.

"Warn the doctor!"

It was like a domino. It wasn't just the people confronting the pro heroes anymore, it was the others who were watching. They fled, seemingly without direction - and yet, Snatches saw several of these people head towards a specific direction.

He ran towards them, and thankfully, the citizens who were trying to stop him did not throw their bodies in the way. He ran through alleys and then through wide open areas. Finally, he saw a white tent that did not fit in with the dirty slums.

Snatch could hear a young voice talking and an old voice humming along.

"... you do need to eat more vegetables, ojisan. You only really get this problem if you don't eat enough fibers to help your large intestines."

"Alright, alright. It sounds like there's a commotion outside so-"

"Uh uh uh. Don't you dare think you can just walk out without a promise. Are you going to eat more vegetables?"

"I'll try."

"Good. Now, tell the nex-"

Then one of the slum citizens saw him and rushed into the tent after glaring at him.

There was harsh whispers before an old man rushed out of the tent. The old man looked at him with wide eyes and a pale face. There was fear there.

Snatch never thought he would be the subject of that kind of a look from the people he swore to protect. A moment of silence passed as the people within the tent rustled and then the man who'd run in walked out. He glared at Snatch before running away.

Finally, someone else walked out of the tent, pushing the flaps aside.

"Doctor Bonesaw" wore a labcoat over his prepubescent body, being no taller than one hundred forty centimeters (4'11"). His dark hair was weaved into dreadlocks, but the mask he wore, a surgical mask over a Greek theater mask of a laughing(?) man, made it so that he couldn't identify any other features.

The boy saw him and Snatch froze. Standing this close to the "villain," he could finally confirm for himself that the "villain" was truly a child, one that the entirety of Tokyo's pro hero agencies had been alerted to be on the lookout for.

The boy who supposedly prevented All Might's death … and may have taken the villain responsible for putting All Might in that state.

"Hello, hero-san."

Snatch snapped out of his thoughts and frowned.

"Doctor … Bonesaw, I presume? I was told to expect a child, but I didn't think it likely."

"... are you here to arrest me like the rest of the heroes before you tried?" There had been previous attempts? "I'm not doing anything harmful," the boy spoke up.

It was a statement that was both true and false. It was a contradiction that existed because it was said by a dangerous person. Anyone with practical medical and surgical knowledge to save All Might from death's embrace was someone who could do the same for villains.

Snatch grunted. "Your actions incite others to do the same, Doctor Bonesaw," he said loudly. "Surrender to the auth-"

"No."

It was an answer much as a statement. Snatch could feel that much from the boy. It wasn't the petulant answer that one would expect from a child but a firm, determined, and stubborn answer. Okay, maybe the stubborn bit was still childish.

How did Snatch get all of these impressions, he didn't know, but he did. "Very well, you brought this upon yourself!" Snatch shouted as he transformed his upper body into a flood of sand and sent himself rushing at the boy. Sand would cushion any impact on the boy, so he couldn't escap-!.

The boy moved fast. Snatch couldn't believe his eyes. The boy darted left to right and back without appearing to be exerting himself at all despite making jumps that would leave the most heroes out of breath, if temporarily.

The boy landed quietly and softly in front of a house, and Snatch rushed forward. His sand flood crashed into a trash can and metal plate the slumbers used for their houses, causing it to rattle loudly.

Snatch flinched. He couldn't destroy anything here if he could help it. Shabby as they were. The slum huts were still homes for many people.

"What's wrong with doing what I do?" the boy asked casually while jumping away from Snatch's attacks. "I use my power. This power is mine and I use it for good productiveness that enhances the quality of life of others. Why should I obey laws that restrict my actions when what I do is good?"

"You talk well, boy, but you don't understand the real world!" the hero shouted before launching another wave of sand the boy jumped away from before jumping back at him, trying to close the gap for some reason when most would retreat or attack from afar. "It only takes one mistake for you to harm someone with our quirks!"

"What's that so different from owning a gun or even a surgeon's scalpel?!" the boy shouted back, obviously irked by Snatch's rebuttal.

"They are very different! Most tools can't even compare to quirks!"

Bonesaw skidded to the side gracefully, a description Snatch never thought he put on a little boy. The boy ducked underneath his flying sands.

'Got you now!' Snatch thought as he brought the sand crashing down on the boy. "So you have to show that you are capable of using your quirk right to the government-"

Bonesaw struck with a palm strike… and Snatch watched as his sands exploded away from the tiny hand's palm. His jaw dropped in shock.

'What?! Wasn't his quirk medical?!'

The boy crouched and sneered at him. "I live for myself and the people I care for, not the overbearing and control freak of a government that Japan has!"

The boy disappeared and reappeared right in front of Snatch with a fist reeled back, and then punched.

Snatch's eyes widened as a gale of wind snapped into existence and blasted him away. He flew back and then tore through a hastily constructed hut. He struggled to get up but he did and when he came back out … the boy was gone.

**-VVG-**

"That's the third time we've failed to catch him," Nezu, the principle of U.A., said out loud. He wasn't scolding anyone, but the disappointment was still there.

Seven heroes stood at attention not only in front of Nezu, but also All Might and the Commissioner General, who was heading the operation to catch Doctor Bonesaw.

"How is Snatch?" the Commissioner General asked.

"Bruised ribs, but he's fine," the doctor present for the meeting said, though it lacked the seriousness that the rest of the room seemed to carry with them. "Still can't believe it was a little kid who did this."

No one said anything as the doctor was dismissed by the Commissioner and the room only had the people in the know.

After Snatch had been defeated, Doctor Bonesaw disappeared among the crowds and left the slums before any other hero could catch even a glance of him. It would be an embarrassment for that particular fact to leak without control.

More than that, there was another thing.

These seven heroes (of the thirty total heroes and sidekicks involved in today's operation), plus All Might, Nezu, and the Commissioner General, were the only people within a kilometer or so radius around them that knew of All Might's fight against a villain All Might was dubbed as "All for One."

"The rest of them keep underestimating him," Edgeshot, the hero who had run into Doctor Bonesaw on the second attempt, chided. "He's stronger than most heroes."

All Might, personally, was worried about the possibility that Doctor Bonesaw was working for All for One. The boy showed multiple quirks, a fact that was causing confusion among all circles as the first "public" example of someone having multiple quirks. When he first met the boy, the boy showed an incredible surgical/medical quirk.

The procedure though…

All Might shivered as the memory of the "surgery" surfaced up briefly.

The boy then went on to make a name for himself as "Vandal," a figure sought after by both heroes and villains. The villains wanted to press him into their service while the heroes wanted him to either get a pro license or stop using his quirk.

The boy did neither of those because he hasn't been caught yet.

It was only a matter of time, however, before one side got enough manpower to simply subdue him by force. Nezu had wanted to do that first by deploying a hundred heroes and their sidekicks, but the Public Safety Committee had forbidden such a large scale operation. Getting even this five agency co-op had taken a lot of wrangling.

"Now what?" Erasurehead grunted. Being the only hero here without an agency of his own and being an underground hero, he had expected to be of more help. But in the face of a rush of people just throwing their bodies at him to stop him from moving, he hadn't been able to do much. "If we let him running around for too long, then we are going to have issues."

Issues like politics and villains, not that they were any different.

Ingenium, the hero with most sidekicks among them all, hummed. "Maybe we are going about this the wrong way."

Everyone turned to him.

"How so?"

"We have been trying to capture him, but that causes Doctor Bonesaw to retaliate. Why don't we just have a doctor of our own find him, evaluate his skills, and then just throw a customized pro license at him?"

"That would leave many unhappy," Nezu immediately pointed out. "Many heroes and sidekicks who got their pro license the hard way would be upset because the hero association gave a villain a pro license."

Ingenium pondered on that. "That… makes sense."

All Might tapped his fingers as he pondered on Ingenium's suggestion a d Nezu's counterpoint.

"Maybe… maybe we don't need to do that," he said out loud. "Just like Ingenium said, we can attach a doctor - and a pro hero - not to evaluate but to supervise Doctor Bonesaw. If the doctor does something villainous, then we can label him as a true villain and muster the necessary force to bring him in." All Might did not like his own idea, but the brute force capture methods have failed three times already. Any more and Doctor Bonesaw may become too hostile towards the hero association.

The Commissioner General hummed. "You bring up good ideas as always, All Might. I will take the proposal to the committee and endorse it."

"Ah, thank you, Yirigato-dono."


	3. The Depths of Dreams

Being chased by heroes took up more than half of the time that I spent as "Doctor Bonesaw," but as a normal child of the Shimura family, I spent most of my time without much trouble.

It helped me relax, and the fact that I didn't need to go to school was a bonus.

Under normal circumstances, I would not have been able to skip out on schooling. Japanese weren't as lax with their school policies about children skipping grades. If anything, then it was frowned upon because of the antiquated strict social hierarchy that the Japanese people adhered to.

For example, if you were two years younger than someone, then you were obviously going to be below them not just in social interactions but also company. With the exception of the geniuses, which I was not, no one got special treatment.

So how did that relate to me?

Simple.

I was not going to school again, despite me loving my new parents.

I mean, I loved my new parents so I did as they asked for the past year or so.

But …

Oh God.

Algebra?

ALGEBRA?!

There was only so much lower level math and science I could do before it all became boring, tedious, and outright infuriating and insulting.

Today, I was putting an end to that.

"I'm here to see Principle Mayitomo-dono," I said cheerfully to the teacher who answered the door to the teacher's room. She was an elderly woman of maybe sixty-something. Her quirk, Noise Dimmer, was something that fit right into teaching a class of rowdy teenagers.

"Sure, honey," she replied with a small smile. "I'll tell him that you're here."

The principle of the school had an office connected to the teachers' office but not the hallway. So one had to go through the teachers' office to get to the principal's office.

She came back and told me I could enter.

I entered the office and glanced around.

It was still morning, but even still, most of the teachers were here right now planning for the day ahead. I knew that the teachers wouldn't get paid for this hour officially because school didn't start until thirty minutes later, but the teachers were expected to be here anyway because it was just how things had been done for the past two hundred years.

Despite being a Japanese now myself, I hated this part of Japanese culture.

'We do the things we do because that's how it's been done.'

One could say that the Japanese were the people who changed the most in the world and yet, their culture as a whole remained stagnant.

And don't get me started on their media censorship and willful ignorance to outside information.

Democratic, yes.

Free, no (despite proclaiming to be so).

I knocked on the principal's office.

"Come in."

And I opened the door.

Principal Mayitomo was a mature man in his fifties. He was also a bureaucratic career climber who got this position because he intended to use it as a stepping stone. However, he wasn't a bad principal. He took the role of mentor and leader seriously, and took his time making sure that the school did the best it could as an institution.

It just helped that such an outcome would benefit him, too.

I was about to ruin that.

"Ah, Shimura-shoneun. What brings you to my office today?" he asked with a smile.

"I want to withdraw from the school," I replied as I pulled out a letter from my parents.

My parents, Shimura Kotaro and Shimura Jinsu, did not want to drop out, even after I told them that I would gain nothing from school, intellectually or socially. I had to take multiple internationally recognized exams like TOFEL, SAT, and the like before they agreed partially to let me withdraw from school.

It was withdrawal because with the number of tests I did take, which would not have been possible without my grandparents who were really nice and let me take all of those exams that proved that I was the smartest kid - their grandkid - alive and they could use that to brag to other grandparents. All it took to convince my grandparents, particularly my formerly international business manager grandfather, was to hold a conversation in full fluent English.

Yeah, mom and dad were not happy with my maternal grandparents about that.

So I pulled out an envelope and handed it to the principal, who took the envelope with an incredulous stare.

He opened the envelope and pulled out the letter my parents wrote … and the five internationally accepted exam scores that I printed out just for this occasion.

Scores that had my grandfather lifting and spinning me in the air for minutes despite his elderly status because of how happy he was, but that's besides the point.

Unlike my grandparents, my parents were less than happy with the scores. It showed them that during the year that I had been missing, something had changed about me. That change had been very apparent when I popped back into our home life without a bloody labcoat, but the test scores just drove home the point of a change that they could not stop.

I may have been a little shit using their guilt over my change into letting me withdraw from school.

The principal read the letter and sputtered.

Legally speaking, if the parents agreed to let me withdraw from school, the principal was incapable of stopping them. He could try to convince them otherwise by personally meeting with them at either home or school. He could petition the regional school department to step in and do something but that was the limit.

If he did anymore than that, then he would be stepping over the social line between school and family.

But more than that, pursuing this would mean his time from his own career would be taken away. It was for this reason why I came to him, and not some bureaucrat in the school department; it would be easier to get him to sign away on my withdrawal.

I smiled.

I left that office with the principal approved document, signed and stamped (another archaic design for a bureaucratic paperwork).

Officially, I withdrew from school.

Unofficially, I graduated.

**-VVG-**

"Why do you get to not go to school!?"

I hummed without much thought as I stroked my little sister's hair.

Shimura Hanna was the youngest of the Shimuras and my new younger sister. She had been just as affected by my disappearance as my parents, but after I came back, she got better.

The year long disappearance, however, did leave a mark on her attitude and behavior. She was always near and waiting on me whenever both of us were home. She panicked when I disappeared without telling her where I was going, including my outings as "Doctor Bonesaw." She actually saw "Doctor Bonesaw" as a good thing.

She called me a hero.

I loved my sister for that alone.

But sometimes, she was a headache.

Like now.

With her head in my lap and looking up at me, she was gripping both of my cheeks with her pinching fingers and stretched them.

"Auh uhma smauh."

"Huh?" she let go of my cheeks.

"I am smart."

"I'm smart, too!" she complained and punched me in the chest. Wrong move, dearest sister.

Immediately, she hissed as her fist turned red from how hard she punched a Bonesaw upgraded dermal non-Newtonian armor. "OW!" she whined with just a bit of tears in her eyes.

"I told you last time that it was stupid, and I'll tell you again now; you're stupid, Hanna."

This wasn't the first time this has happened, and yet Hanna has yet to learn.

I laughed at her pouting face.

"... Hey, nii-chan?"

"Hmm?"

"Can we go to the Dream Realm again? I want to see … what was it? That green and blue city on that field of purple and red flowers."

Dream Realm was a plane of existence that, to humans, was only accessible by dreaming. There were, of course, a few places and beings who could force a doorway into physical existence so that one can physically go to the Dream Realm.

I was one such existence, granted such power by Abstract, one of my powers.

"That's the City of Byursk," I answered her absentmindedly as I too imagined where we last visited in our adventure into the Dream Realm.

"Byursk. It sounds like foreign."

I smirked. "Far more foreign than you will ever realize."

"Can we visit there right now?"

"Sure," I said as I overlapped my room with the Dream Realm. The walls, floor, and ceiling disappeared into open skies and purple ground where purple and red flowers grew without a hint of leaves on their stem. Though Hanna did not see them, parasitic worms crawled around us, waiting for the perfect host to take them away from the black soil beneath the field of purple and red flowers.

Hanna giggled as she jumped up from where she was laying and ran around me, sending flower petals everywhere.

I laughed with her because it made her happy but I was keenly aware that there were those who did not appreciate our presence here. We were only left alone because I was stronger than most humans, and stronger than most denizens who didn't like us because we were humans.

I thanked God and all that was holy that the Dream Realm that I accessed contained no influence of the eldritch horrors.

This did not mean that there weren't any other horrors.

I smiled at Hanna as she ran ahead, but I kept my focus on the things that were crawling unseen in the skies and the very purple and red field of flowers. Their nonexistent eyes focused on me without blinking.

I was someone who had great influence in this place, because I was a physical gateway between the Real and the Dream.

And just as the Real can enter the Dream through me, so can the Dream enter the Real using my portals.

And the Dreamers, those who were born in the Dream Realm, wanted to travel to the Real, a place where laws were set and concrete, where the Dreamers would not simply cease to exist because of the whims or imagination of someone else.

Where, if they entered, they would leave behind remains that YES WE EXISTED.

Bu I would not let them go through. I didn't know how, but it came with the power: knowledge. Their very existence would destabilize the Real where they treated. Sooner or later, the Dream would leak into the Real, and the Real would leak right back. The Real and the Dream would blur and laws on both sides of the world collapse under the strain.

This was why humans were hated. They were the most frequent visitors to the Dream Realm. The Dreamers envied us all for that ability alone. Stuck here in the Dream Realm, the Dreamers were.

Bound by the whims, imagination, and rules of those stronger than them, their fate was.

And humans were oh so prone to will their existence away.

I glanced to the periphery of my vision, where a particularly powerful Dreamer stood out of Hanna's sight but not mine despite the fact that this field of purple and red flowers had no walls for the being to hide behind.

The being had "willed" that he was invisible to the unaware human child who was my sister, while it could not hide from me.

I smiled for Hanna but my focus was on this thing.

"{Let us out.}"

"No," I replied.

"{Why do you wish us to die without remains? All we want is to show that we existed.}"

"And you would doom both of the realms and many more realms out there to chaos." Because one would lead to two, two to four, four to ten, ten to a thousand, and a thousand was more than enough to break down the barriers between our two worlds.

"{I care not.}"

I chuckled at it without looking, keeping my eyes on my sister. "Then disappear into the nothingness just as you wished to others."

It shrieked. It was ear-piercingly loud.

Hanna heard none of it because I willed it so.

The creature, once mighty and powerful and bigger than the biggest walking creature to have ever lived on Earth, disappeared, having ceased to exist because I, the stronger, had willed it so.

Such was the fickleness of the Dream Realm.

The stronger ruled, and they ruled absolutely.

And I?

I was perhaps one of the strongest, but as a human, I always grew where the Dreamers did not.

'Now, it would be perfect if I don't run into a shoggoth today.'

Ignoring the terrified Dreamers invisible to Hanna, I walked forward to catch up to her in her quest to further explore the City of Byurth, the city ruled by a Dreamer stronger than me … and yet weaker than Hanna.

No flower got crushed or stomped as we walked, and then we came upon the Road of Alshi that led to the Prismarine Gate of Byurth.

"Nee, nee! Who do you think we will see today?" Hanna asked with a big and bright smile. I watched in the periphery of my vision as Dreamers formed into existence as Hanna imagined.

"Hmm," I hummed, ignoring the new Dreamers fleeing their creator in fear. "Well, I think the king would like to welcome us first."

"Oh, okay!"

And so we traveled. More Dreamers were born or lost in that single event than a regular human dream. It was no wonder that other Dreamers, not the newborns, flocked to Hanna. Her imagination gave birth to Dreamers, and other Dreamers feasted upon the newborns or absorbed them. It gave them miniscule boosts of power but it was, as far as they were concerned, worth it.

Then we were upon the Prismarine Gate of Byurth, the only entrance and exit in all of the City of Byurth. The Prismarine Gate glistened in the sextuple star-lit rainbow skies, masking the way the Dreamers of the city devoured any outlander Dreamers that dared to get close without permission.

No Byurth Dreamer dared to stop Hanna.

But one did step forward to greet her - and me - as she entered the city. The blakc Road of Alsi gave away to blue and green Prismarine flat cobblestone ground of the Byurth, and a single lanky figure dressed in grey toga appeared in front of us.

"Cassie!" Hanna squealed and jump-tackle-hugged the Byurth Dreamer.

Cassie (full name: Cassimorika Nivobrinorkomitaskavi) stood three meters tall, had arms as thin as an twelve year old Hanna's, had two beady eyes, a bald head, a neck that was too long, legs that were too short, and arms that reached down all the way down to the ground with too many joints in between the shoulders and wrists.

"Welcome back, Hanna," Cassie greeted genially with her(?) smooth and feminine voice as she(?) wrapped her arms once, twice, and then thrice around Hanna and herself. "You came back so soon? It's only been five years!"

Like all places whose foundations of physics laid on top of abstract ideas, not physical phenomena, time was both irrelevant, inconsistent, and random.

The first and second time I came to this city was perhaps the most confusing for me because I apparently explored two different parts of the city … at the same time. As such, time was what we made of it. Hanna and I counted time as linear and in consistent scale (notwithstanding our personal "feel" of how time passes from our perspectives like how time seemed to pass so fast doing something we loved yet so slow during boring things).

Hanna giggled. "It's only been a month for me!" she laughed. Cassie lowered my sister to the ground before greeting me more formally.

"Welcome to the City of Byurth, Gatekeeper."

"Thank you for the welcome," I said.

Unlike Hanna, who was stronger than Byurth's king and thus the superior of the city and its king, I was weaker than the king (yet not), so I needed a welcome of some sort before I could venture further into the city than the first layer (which I hadn't fully explored still).

I stepped up left of my sister as we moved deeper into the city with Cassie as our guide, who led us towards the center of the city, where the king waited.

"Has anything interesting happen yet?" I asked Cassie while Hanna looked at everything in marvel.

Cassie hummed. "The Quiet Change and the Black Hope of Vykto have gone to war over a stream of human dreamers," he replied. "Many resident Dreamers have had to flee to my king's Parasitic Purple Field."

"So that's why there were so many of them," I observed. "And so much more insistent in getting across."

Cassie frowned. "How insistent, Lord of the Gate?"

"They talked to me."

Cassie's face blanked for a second before twisting into a wrathful sneer.

"Then a time of culling is upon us."

"Hmm."

Just like that, the conversation ended - and I pretended to not notice a horde of Byurth's many masked and hungry soldiers leave through the Prismarine Gate to kill the refugees in the purple field.

And we reached the Throne Room.

"King!" Hanna squealed as she ran up to the Throne, ignorant of the court the king had been holding at the time, and hugged the giant white and blue squirrel.

The king chittered, demanding that she let go of him without words yet getting the meaning across. She giggled and laughed as she mistook his attempts to pry her off him as playing.

I laughed at the misfortune for the Wordless King of Byurth. Because of his appearance and how he first appeared to Hanna, he would always be weaker than her.

For how could a squirrel scare a little girl?

I laughed.

I wasn't laughing the day after when I heard that Hanna and her entire elementary school was taken hostage by villains.


	4. Elementary School

I only heard it because I was enjoying my first complete day away from school in front of the TV. Computer and me in this new life was kind of far, mostly because I had little access to it at home and I was too busy outside to use it then.

So I was sitting on the couch with everyone gone from the house except my grandparents, who were just glad to spend time with me.

I jolted up in my seat when I heard the news broadcast abruptly change. "Breaking news! We have just received a report that a group of villains have taken a school hostage!" the anchor said rapidly.

I snorted. "More reason for me to not be in school, right?" I asked my grandpa. But grandpa didn't respond. His face, ashen and wide-eyed, looked at the screen panickedly. Turning my attention back to the screen, I saw the name of the school.

My stomach dropped like a lead ball as I read "Private Hotogakari Elementary."

Hotogakari.

My sister's school?

Someone took my sister hostage?

I smiled before turning back to grandpa and grandma.

"I'll be back. Might want to prepare for a bloody labocat."

Grandma was the first to react. "Tenko, you can't-!" But then she stopped when she saw my face.

"It'll be fine."

* * *

The hostage situation was going well in Oyusoru "Shonin (Vindicator)" Shodo's mind.

He and nine other villains, each of whom were as strong or stronger than him, worked together to take an elementary school hostage.

Why?

Because among the third graders was a kid of a hero.

A hero responsible of several of their friends' deaths.

They were here to take advantage of the kid's existence and put an end to the murderous hero.

"What are you demands?!" the police negotiator on the other side of the barricade shouted.

Shonin ignored the police. None of the heroes have yet to arrive, which was good. It helped that the hero they wanted to kill worked at a hero agency that was the closest to this school.

The hero would arrive soon.

And they would kill him.

They didn't want to hurt any kids. That was just dumb and low. They would scare the kids, take them hostage, and even hold them back from talking to their parents but never physically hurt them.

They had standards unlike the fucking hero.

"What's the Eagle saying?" Shonin asked his comrades over the comm.

"Target enroute."

Shonin grinned.

"Huh? The fuc-? OH SHIT!"

"Marker, what's going on?!"

"B-Bone! It's Bonesaw!"

… Huh?

What was that reclusive healer doing here?

Shonin looked over the barricade, and sure enough, hopping over the police barricade at the entrance of the walled off school was none other than the vigilante healer, Doctor Bonesaw.

"NO NO NO-!" Marker kept on hissing into the comm before there was a shout and tumble as someone took off running after leaving his comm behind.

"Marker, what the fukc are you doing?!" someone else shouted through the comm but no answer.

"Someone check up on Marker. I'll go talk to Bonesaw," Tayuga, their leader in this operation, said as he came up from behind Shonin. Shonin raised an eyebrow.

"You sure?"

"He's a healer, not a fighter. I'm sure," Tayuga said, ignoring Shonin's question and moved over the concrete barricade Shonin made using his quirk, Landscaper. It was a powerful quirk and Shonin would have become a hero, too, if it wasn't for Endeavor.

Endeavor who killed his brother.

'Just you wait, murderer,' Shonin thought to himself as he watched Tayuga walk forward to deal with the interloper. 'We'll get you, and when we do-'

Tayuga stood before Bonesaw and the two chatted. Bonesaw asked a question and Tayuga responded. Then Tayuga began talking again when it happened.

Snap.

Shonin blinked as Tayuga simply collapsed mid-talk with Bonesaw.

"The fuck-?" he sputtered before seeing a shiny thing sticking out of Tayuga's forehead. He narrowed his eyes and then they shot wide open.

A scalpel. That shiny thing sticking out of Tayuga's forehead was a scalpel.

Wheeze-

Shonin ducked, not trusting his sight, and was vindicated when he heard metal bounce off his concrete barrier.

"Bonesaw is hostile!" he shouted through his comm. "He can throw shit! He just took out Tayuga!"

The comm broke into chatter and a few villains stepped out to deal with Bonesaw. They had been waiting for Endeavor, but if Bonesaw was here and hostile, then he could force them to show their hands. They couldn't let that happen.

"We'll deal with him," one of the villains running towards Bonesaw grunted over the network. "Drilling S-!"

CRACK!

Shonin looked over the barricade, and gawked when he saw the tiny healer standing in front of Driller with an arm through his chest. Driller gagged and then collapsed sideways when Bonesaw pushed him away as the corpse fell.

"You said he was a healer, Marker! Where the hell is Marker?!" one of the villains who'd jump out to kill Bonesaw spat before -.

There was a buzz and then Bonesaw was behind him.

"Rewinder, watch out!" Shonin shouted, but it was too late.

Bonesaw swung his arm and Rewinder's red helmet and head ripped away from his neck and shoulders in a spray of blood that stained the school's dirt track field.

"You shit-!" someone else shouted, a villain Shonin wasn't familiar with, but he too died instantly when Bonesaw blurred and ripped his spine out.

O-Oh god, someone can rip out a spine-!

Bonesaw then disappeared in another buzz, and Shonin shuddered. He whirled around to run for it, but -.

He fell onto his butt and scrambled back, only to hit the very barrier he initially used to keep himself safe from the police. "No no no no-!" he whimpered.

Bonesaw stood less than five meters from him, decorated with fresh blood.

"Shouldn't have done this kind of shit," Bonesaw said coolly. "All you did was attract my attention."

"Fuck -!" Shonin hissed and sent the concrete and wooden walls around him at Bonesaw as spikes. Bonesaw weaved between them all and was in front of Shonin less than two seconds afterward.

With a mental command, Shonin dropped the ground beneath him, and Bonesaw's scalpel narrowly missed his neck, cutting off a tuft of his mask and hair instead.

"You think you're some kind of a vigilante, huh?!" Shonin shouted and then slammed his hand. Abruptly, the school split down the middle above him and exposed the school entrance hall to the sky above. With another mental command, the ground beneath this Bonesaw guy dropped and the ground underneath Shonin rose up rapidly.

"Kuh!" Shonin gritted his teeth as he fought the massive G-force he just forced on himself, but he knew that this guy was no joke. If he didn't do his best, then he was going to die!

Soon, he cleared the three stories of the elementary school he just broke. The concrete pillar finally stopped, and he found himself on the rooftop.

"Nice try."

Shonin's eyes widened after hearing those words from his back. He looked over his shoulder, trying to twist out of the way of whatever was coming his way.

SNAP

He felt his neck break and he crumpled on the spot, being able to look only. As the colors slowly drained out of the world, he saw Bonesaw head back down to the school.

Shonin knew in his last moments that he would not be going to hell alone.

-VVG-

"What is he doing?" Detective Jimusa muttered to himself as he stared at the suddenly violent vigilante.

Doctor Bonesaw was an infamous even to the police. He was the vigilante/villain who healed people, often times using his quirk to do so. The Hero Public Safety Commission had put out a warrant for his arrest after multiple confirmed quirk usage sightings, but no one had been able to arrest him yet.

What confused Jimusa was the fact that Bonesaw, who was known to avoid violence and bloodshed just fucking killed all of the villains that had taken Hotogakiri Elementary hostage with the same ease Jimusa killed bugs with.

Seeing human lives end in such a fashion shook him, and yet, here he was, still asking the question.

Why?

And the latest question: what.

The school was still in lockdown with teachers looking out of the windows of the locked down classrooms, where they and their charges remained holed up. The police didn't come to relieve them or tell them to come out because there was still Bonesaw doing something with the bodies of the dead villains.

"S-Stop!"

Everyone froze when one of the police officers with Jimusa jumped over the police barrier and shouted at Bonesaw.

Everyone looked at Bonesaw.

Bonesaw ignored the brave police officer, continuing to do … something with the dead villains. He held up a severed head and then poked at it for a few seconds. Then he attached … something to the bottom of the head. 'What is he doing-?' Jimusa began to think but was abruptly cut off by a "AAAAHHHH!"

Jimusa, other police officers, and the reporters on site all looked at Bonesaw and the screaming severed head.

"IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!" the head shrieked, spitting out blood. "IT HURTS! OH GOD IT HURTS!"

His face paled, and Jimusa heard someone to his left throw up.

Doctor Bonesaw nodded in satisfaction and pulled out a spine from one of the dead bodies and did something more. More bones were pulled out, and everyone could only watch in horror as Bonesaw built a platform of bones and then placed the screaming head on top.

"A warning to all," Bonesaw spoke up, his voice firm and loud. "Anyone else who harms children in the city of Chiba will be met with this fate. Do not test me on this."

Then he was gone, disappearing between one blink of their eyes and the next.

The head continued to scream without stopping.

Jimusa quickly ran up and punched the severed yet living head in the temple, knocking it out and giving everyone a blissful silence.

* * *

All Might grimaced looking at the pictures and the report in front of him.

As one of the leading heroes in the nation, he had been called forth to the Hero Public Safety Commission's meeting in regards to the villain "Doctor Bonesaw."

The report was unflattering, ignoring every good thing Bonesaw did. It highlighted Bonesaw's age, refusal to obey the authority, and the recent Hotogakiri Massacre, where he killed ten villains and then created a …

Yagi felt sick looking at the image and the supposedly ninth villain victim who had been killed and then brought back to life.

The media, despite their usual predatory nature, quickly stopped the circulation of uncensored images, but there were some sickos who did manage to get them out there for the public to see.

Oh, how they saw.

President of the H.P.S.C. stepped into the meeting room, probably just getting off another meeting with the Prime Minister, walked around the table, ignoring the stares of people, and then sat down at the head.

"Thank you all for being here," she spoke calmly. "I understand that Bonesaw has finally stepped over the line?"

Bonesaw had been, for a year now, a target of the H.P.S.C. as its biggest ideological enemy. All Might knew just how giddy the president must be feeling to finally have her and her institution's enemy commit such a mistake.

But All Might didn't think it would be so easy.

Despite the horror Bonesaw committed, he had the backing of powerful families who had sent their children to Hotogakiri Elementary, a private elementary school for middle and high-class families. Many children from Hotogakiri made their way into Soumei, a prestigious middle school, and some would eventually make it into U.A.

On top of that, Bonesaw was known to be a master escapist. Take their eyes off of him for a single second and he would be gone. Snatch was the only hero who engaged in combat with Bonesaw, and low A-tier hero lost his skirmish rather quickly.

The public itself was split on the issue. Some saw the horrors and thought about how Bonesaw was merciless in the massacre while many also spoke up about how Bonesaw, a healer known to ignore heroes and villains alike in favor of healing (respectful as far as most were concerned), stepping in where heroes were late and the police were powerless to do what was necessary to save children.

"Young or not, we must arrest him for this," Commissioner General said out loud from across Yagi. "This is too big of a violation of this country's laws."

"Ditto," Hawks, the only other hero who'd been invited to this meeting, said from his seat. "Making that creepy bone statue shows that he is extreme villainous."

All Might agreed with Hawks on it, but still felt hesitant.

Bonesaw must have had a reason to go so far, right? He could have done that to heroes-.

…

"Wait, there was supposed to be ten villains," All Might pointed out. "Where is the last?"

"Ah, the last villain," Chiba Police Chief Sumitaru Joli repeated with a small 'ah.' "A villain known as Marker, he can detect the location of anyone he's seen in a two kilometer radius. We caught him."

"A survivor?" the Commissioner General asked thoughtfully.

"No. He ran as soon as he heard that Bonesaw was at the school," Joli replied as she shifted a little. All Might had to close his eyes (not that anyone can see it) so that he wouldn't see her breasts jiggle. The Commissioner General was less than subtle about staring.

"... Someone who knew Bonesaw's tendencies before us?" Hawks asked questioningly.

"Yes, we did suspect that and interrogated Marker. Apparently, Marker has been part of a villain circle hired by an anonymous backer who wanted Bonesaw captured. Of the fifty villains he worked with, only three survived."

A chill ran down everyone's spines.

"How come we have never heard about this?" All Might asked, shocked. And then surprised that the same hasn't happened to the heroes yet. If Bonesaw was truly violent, then why did he avoid the heroes? Did he respect them? It would explain some but not all of the details of the mystery that was Doctor Bonesaw.

"Those fifty villains constituted the majority of the villains here in Chiba, and their sudden disappearance allowed my department to swoop in. The five survivors had fled before already, but Marker's hatred of Endeavor led him to come back for this one mission."

To hear that an atrocity had happened (no matter who it had happened to) and that they would not have heard about it if not for this one interference left many frustrated and troubled.

How many more had Bonesaw killed?

Were there even more of the "bone effigies" - as the internet was calling Bonesaw's handiwork - out there somewhere? Someone suffering continuously without anyone to help them?

Unable to scream but living and in pain?

All Might curled his hands up into fists.

"Anything else?" he asked firmly.

"... Not much more other than sightings of Doctor Bonesaw all over Tokyo long before this incident. We have reason to believe that he lives in Chiba."

Hawks interjected. "Doctor Bonesaw's mannerism isn't a slum kid nor a street rat. He's obviously trained in more than a few fields if Snatch's report on Bonesaw's diagnosis of patients at the Nishitsuga Slums. Well-educated too if Snatch felt Bonesaw won their argument, too. He's not even rude when confronted violently. He's neither sociopathic or psychotic…"

"Hawks…?"

"A family?" the Commissioner General asked, looking at Hawks.

All Might tried to -.

"You mean -?" All Might asked, having caught onto their train of thoughts.

"He lives in Chiba and operates most extensively there. He avoids heroes and villains even when confronted, and the only two times that he's engaged in violence was against villains, once in the underground and once in broad daylight. But he didn't need to. Heroes would have been at the school in under five minutes," Hawks, the sharp and smart lad who was quickly rising to the top, said, laying down the details. "A healer by choice, he chose to kill … and make a public example." The young man paled. "He has family in Hotogakiri."

The president of the H.P.S.C. grimaced. "It makes sense. There was no reason for Doctor Bonesaw to react so … brutally. He's never interfered in crimes involving children before in Chiba. If he really does have family in Hotogakiri…"

Most of the influential families in Chiba and even a few beyond sent their kids to Hotogakiri.

If any single one of them was harboring Doctor Bonesaw, then it was going to be shitstorm even if they managed to keep it quiet.

"Fuck," someone else in the room grunted. "So we have a bomb that's going to go off if we decide to defuse it or we have a feral dog which we don't know when might snap."

"... Then we must catch him and stop him before he deals anymore damage to the public," the president said. "Even if we have to step on some shoes, we cannot allow anyone to so blatantly ignore the laws and gather the support of the public."

All Might wondered if it would be as easy as the president of the H.P.S.C. was making it sound like.


	5. Deals All Around

**A/N: Welcome back to Doctor Bonesaw, where shit is weird in more than one ways.**

**Answer regarding Bonesaw's age: **_Unlike canon Tomura, this Tomura is only two years older than the canon first year UA cast, making him 16 when MHA Chapter 1 canon hits the scene and 18 during first UA arc._

* * *

Hanna was very scared because of the villains, and she wanted to go to the Dream Realm.

I denied her this. I knew that the Dream Realm become a sort of haven for Hanna, where she didn't have to worry, where she was powerful. She could fly, jump, run, and do all sorts of things that she couldn't do here.

But in her state of mind, she would create Dreamers that were horrors. So I refused her.

And for the first time since I came back to her life, she avoided me out of anger and sadness.

I was fine with that.

As for myself, I realized that as good as being a healer was, all I was doing was treating the symptoms of this society. The existence of slums and the uniquely Japanese ways of handling them (i.e. not handling them at all, being prejudiced against people from slums, intentionally making it harder for people to move out of the slums, etc) as well as villains who took advantage of the slums was …

Not good.

I couldn't fix this by just continuously treating the symptoms. I had to do more than that.

At the same time, I didn't want to stop helping them personally.

What could I do, what could I do…

* * *

**2261 January 9 (4 years before canon)**

"Well, I'm sorry I'm short!" I shouted as I stared up at the bouncer guarding the entrance to a nightclub in Kabukicho district of Tokyo.

Despite canon Tenko's tall stature, the current me was anything but. Maybe it had to do with the fact that this Tenko hadn't gone crazy during his childhood, but he also hadn't possessed any quirk until I came along.

Yes, the original Shimura Tenko in this timeline - which was definitely not canon - was a quirkless. And shorter. Maybe he hit a growth spurt between sixteen and twenty but goddamnit, I was used to being tall!

And tall meant at least a modicum of respect!

"You don't look like you should be here, boy," the bouncer chuckled but it was clear that he was tired of my shit. His hands enlarged and he pushed me. "Get lost."

I stumbled back, squawking. I supposed that dressed casually as I was compared to the rest of the people wanting to get in, I did look out of place.

"Look, fucker," I growled, using fluent American-accent English for a second. I tsked before turning my narrowed eyes to the bouncer, who seemed surprised by my accent. "I have a fucking meeting with your boss," I grunted in Japanese. "So can you move out of the way? Call your boss if you have to."

The bouncer scoffed but did pull out his phone. "If this turns out to be a ruse, I'm going to kick your ass, kid."

"HA!" I barked. "In your dreams, old man."

He ignored me and called. A few seconds later, someone answered. "Hey, aniki. Some kid out here said he has an appointment with you." A pause. He looked at me. "Name?"

"Call me Bonesaw."

Everything froze in the alley as the atmosphere dropped from festive hundred to shocked twenty.

"Funny. Now, what's your real name?" he growled and then stopped. Suddenly, he paled. "Uh, boss?" he said. "Y-You sure?" The voice on the other side got really loud this time. And frantic. The bouncer looked at me and his face paled drastically. "G-Got it." He put his phone away and stepped aside. "B-Boss says you're good to go."

I ignored him from then on and walked inside.

The club was cliche in the all of the ways that mattered. Loud, obnoxious music. Alcohol everywhere. Idiots fucking each other in public. White powder on tables.

Actually, was this a nightclub or a drug den?

Ugh.

I ignored them all and headed upstairs. The guard there saw me coming and quickly moved out of the way. Smart man.

The soundproof upstairs presented a much better image. There was far less debauchery, and the quality of goods and services my eyes saw didn't hurt me with their cheapness. The bar was pleasantly lit, not left in the shadows, and it was … just better.

The overall green scheme on everything, though, irritated me.

"A-Ah, Doctor," someone stuttered from my left.

I looked and saw a green haired man.

"Koma," I greeted.

Koma was a short and thin man with a walrus moustache and bowl cut wearing a dress suit, pants, and shoes. He was the proprietor of the Jinx Nightclub, and also a member of the Tokyo Chikuwa, a villain group that sought to control all of the Tokyo underground. An impossibility, I considered their goal, but as long as they left Chiba city alone, I didn't care.

We knew each other because he was actually one of the slum denizens I managed to heal a year ago. He's since then moved up in the world (the underworld). He was also someone who knew how strong I was because he saw me brutally murder a dozen villains.

"You have a client here," I said smoothly. "One of the so-called 'League of Villains.'"

Koma's face paled. "Y-You can't look for them!" he hissed as he got close to me. He and I were about the same height with him on the shorter side. "Their boss is -"

"All for One, an old man who steals and gives quirks," I drawled. I didn't particularly care about that fact getting out. Actually, it would be fun to see how the world reacted to that. All Might, his cohorts, All for One, and his cohorts all did their best to keep All for One's true quirk hidden from the public.

I considered it foolishness.

If All Might exposed that quirk, then he would get the public's support in putting down All for One before he became too big.

If All for One revealed his own quirk, then he would get public's support from those disenfranchised by their own quirks.

Of course, both of them had valid reasons to not do so.

All for One liked his privacy and the knowledge of his quirk would bring undue attention and response not just from Japan but from all over the world. No matter how big All for One made himself out to be, there was always a bigger fish out there (like me).

All Might was a hero, not a journalist. His job was to keep society safe. Exposing All for One would get him help, no doubt, but it would jeopardize the foundation of the current Japanese society.

An insular, highly discriminative, and proud society, but it was All Might's society nonetheless.

It was hard for one to see the flaws of what they loved (or sometimes, it was only too easy but All Might was the kind of someone who was probably the former and not the latter.

"I heard that a particular villain who's been going in and out of your nightclub," I continued. "A villain who's escaped me in Chiba."

"B-Bonesaw, you're going to get me killed!" Koma begged.

"Or I kill you for associating with a villain."

Koma paled.

It's been two years since I came to this world and a year and a half since I have been active as "Doctor Bonesaw." Though the number of my actions have been low, I did create a reputation for myself initially as a healer and doctor capable of fixing nearly anything and then I showed the world that I was not someone to mess with. The Villain Massacre of Hotogakiri was not the first but the second of five such instances.

The first was the annihilation of the first group All for One put together.

The second was the Villain Massacre of Hotogakiri.

The third was the fight between four heroes and himself after they cornered him.

The fourth, and perhaps the most widely known international bit, was the direct battle between the Phillipine's "rogue" special forces sent to abduct him. They did manage to knock him out, but he woke up on the cargo hauler merely seven kilometers off the coast of Osaka, and sunk the ship with all hands. That got him all kinds of condemnations, but the people who needed healing didn't care. When they heard he was around, they came like moths to a light, helplessly seeking healing.

The fifth and last incident was a battle between All Might and myself. That one was …

Fun.

-VVG-

5 months ago

They found me when I was training.

I stared at the eyes of the policemen (and police woman and police dog-heads, lizard-heads, and other animal-heads, and non-animal-heads) pointing their revolvers at me. There were some fifty of them and I was impressed.

"To think that you lot kept this many people here without giving away your intent," I chuckled as I wiped my sweat from my brow. I had been practicing some new moves. Experimental as they were, they took a lot of effort to get it right each time.

But the real trouble for me was that I had gone on "the Hunt" through some of the Dream Realm's less stable regions. I might not show it, but I was injured from fighting at least three Dreamers that were as strong, if not stronger, than Wordless King of Byurth. I'd gone all out, and my Well Tap was more or less empty.

"Alright, are any of you going to talk?" I asked as I took a step forward. All of them took a step back.

One of them finally spoke up. "We are putting you under arrest for the destruction of national property. Please get down on the floor with your hands on your head-"

I punched, and the air compressed. The compressed air burst and created a directional shockwave. This shockwave traveled to the speaking police lizard's face and lightly tapped him.

Everything froze.

"Oh good, you talked. If I've been really discovered here, then it means that there are others. Where are they?" I asked casually as the sweat dried. "Where are the heroes?"

In the fall mountains, winds blew constantly and so there was silence filled only by the breeze rustling leaves.

I looked around, wondering why they were not answering. It's been almost a minute since they confronted me-.

"Ah," I let out a breath. "You're all delaying."

My training location wasn't just a single place but the entire mountain range. I picked a spot at random but out of the way locations that most people wouldn't see, and practiced there. If the police and the heroes found more than one of my training locations, then they would have to split up.

It took time for them to respond and come to where I was right now.

Well, then!

I sat down, and I saw how surprised the police were.

"Come, sit!" I said as I heavily slapped the ground, which sounded like fifty kilo hammers pounding more than a teenager's hand. "I'm more than willing to wait for the heroes. It'll be a good fight. So sit! No need to stand on my account. It's not like your bullets will hurt me."

They kept standing with their revolvers out and pointed.

"Bah. Be that way," I clicked my tongue.

So we waited.

… Man, it's boring.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before someone came jumping down from the heavens itself into the clearing.

My eyes widened.

The new guy's eyes widened.

"You!" All Might said out loud.

"How have you been, All Might?" I asked in English. "The injury's fully healed, I hope?"

"I-It is," he replied. Then he tensed and drew in a deep breath. "Will you come with me?" he asked. "I have questions I want to ask."

"Hmm…" I made the facade of considering ."Nope!"

All Might grimaced. "You can't win against me, shounen," he spoke to me as if he was speaking to a particularly dumb child.

I punched lightly from where I was sitting, and the same thing happened. The pressure from my attack touched All Might on the nose. He saw how I had casually made that attack, and his grimace turned into a blank look.

"Fall back," he yelled to the police, and they quickly scattered. Once they were gone, he focused on me. "Did you get that quirk in exchange for helping him?"

"Helping who?" I was being deliberately difficult, but it was fun doing this. These days, the only thing I enjoyed was being with my family, visiting the Dream Realm, and messing with people verbally. I did want to fight people, too, but … there was a limit to what I could do. The sheer compatibility of my powers working together put me rather high up on the ladder.

"You know who I am talking about. All for One."

"Ah," I said as if I finally understood what All Might was talking about. "The creator of your power." All Might looked shocked that I knew that much. "But nope, he didn't. In fact, he tried to steal my quirk! Rude bastard." This was a fact. "I saved his life, and what does he do? Ask me to join, and when he gets rejected, he tried to steal my quirk!"

All Might stared at me, not knowing what to make of me.

"You are not working with him?"

"Nope! I do what I want."

"Shounen, you can't do that."

"Uh huh, I can." Oh god, being this childish was fun!

All Might looked exasperated.

"Look, shounen. I know that the laws are -"

"Insufferable, stupid, and backward," I replied seriously this time. "Compared to other nations like Korea, Canada, USA, France, Italy, Poland, and even Saudi Arabia, Japan has laws that are outdated and unnecessarily restrictive. Is it any wonder that a man like All for One was able to gain power?"

The sudden change in my attitude threw All Might off again, but his recovery was quick. "But the law is a law. Until it is changed, we must obey it. No one is above the law."

I deadpanned at him. "If you truly believe that, then you are the perfect hero for this nation," I replied with a sneer. "Strong, charismatic … yet weak to the government regardless of what they do."

"And simply ignoring the laws made by the representatives of the people is the better way?"

"And preventing people like me from healing others just because the method involves one of my quirks is a good thing?"

"Getting a license for a quirk like yours is easy!"

"But it would be a support of the system that allows slums to exist because its denizens have no quirk or useless quirks."

All Might looked stricken about that, losing that famous smile of his and even his body posture sagged a little.

"... I know it isn't right."

"Then why do you support the system?"

"Because my job is to save the people, not govern them."

"... Fair enough."

"The other part of my job is to take in disruptive and violent elements of society, no matter what their other or past accomplishments are."

"Also fair enough."

"You won't surrender?"

"Nope."

"So we fight?"

I stood up and dusted myself of the leaves. "Yes. We fight."

There was a pause as we both regarded each other.

* * *

We kind of destroyed a mountain in that battle, and the government - with its military - was very adamant that such an event didn't happen again.

I was not confident enough to take on an entire military, so I avoided it. This resulted in me sitting down with a representative of the government and hashing out a deal.

For my part, I would not attack any heroes unless attacked first, kill no bystanders or heroes, and keep out of government land. For their part, they agreed to let me do my healing without trouble, kept their heroes off me unless I did something stupid and extremely illegal, and wouldn't bother me about villain-killing unless I got too public or showy about it. Despite how short the promise was from both sides, the actual negotiation took over the course of thirteen hours spread over a week.

My agreement with the government was not widely known but what was widely known to the villains and their associates was that the heroes and the government did not chase after me anymore.

Me threatening to kill Koma? It was not an empty threat nor a heavy one. He would be just another body added to the list of bodies tagged underneath my name.

"W-Wait, I'll talk! I'll talk!" he whimpered as he backed away.

"Oh good. It would suck to have to kill someone I healed, you know?" I said with a teeth-baring smile. I dropped the smile and glared at him. "Now spill."

"His name is Kurogiri!"

I blinked at the name. Then I really smiled.

Koma paled.

"Tell me more," I crooned.


	6. We Fight

Kurogiri was perhaps All for One's greatest asset. A warp quirk like that was hard to find, and even harder to steal without drawing attention to himself. Kurogiri, on the other hand, was completely aligned with All for One.

I intended to kill Kurogiri, if only to level the playing field.

As for as I was concerned, there were four factions to be wary of in Japan. Kurogiri and his long-distance, long-duration, and high-volume "Mover" quirk upset that balance too much. If it wasn't for the fact that All for One wanted something to rule, then Kurogiri would be the best tool one could have to cause chaos.

To have Kurogiri's whereabouts was as precious as a gold car.

And so, after a quick threat to Koma, I waited inside the nightclub.

And waited and waited and waited.

Finally, the man appeared.

Stepping into the nightclub's second story was the man himself in flowing black and purple mists, Kurogiri.

My eyes widened as I saw someone else with him, however. Someone I hadn't wanted to fight yet because I needed him alive to fight a true hero like All Might.

All for One.

He came here himself with Kurogiri!

… Well, good. This saved me time, considering that I did have a little question. Oh, I still intended to kill Kurogiri, but I also wanted All for One to answer something.

"Koma-san," All for One opened up, greeting the man. "I-." He stopped. "... I see. Were you forced to remain silent?"

Koma and I both realized what he was referring to. I scoffed as I stepped out of the shadows. "That was stupid of me," I noted, seeing Kurogiri startle upon seeing me before shaking as he realized who I was in my mask and lab coat. "I hadn't expect you to have sensor-type quirks flaring, but maybe because I was being stupid. Why wouldn't you have it up?"

"Doctor Bonesaw," All for One greeted me coolly as he turned his body just a bit to face me more than he faced Koma. "I did not expect you to come to a place like … this."

I stared at him for a second. "Yeah, well, I was scouting your group out."

"So open?"

"You're smart enough to figure it out anyway, right?" I asked. "I don't see any reason why I need to hide the details you will figure out minutes into this conversation."

"So you s-" he flicked his finger. "-ay."

Kurogiri tried to warp away.

Instantly, the entire building shook as I activated Predator's Aura (Submission). Kurogiri and Koma slammed into the floor as their bodies felt my aura press down upon them like enhanced gravity.

"S-S-Sens-sei…!" Kurogiri hissed from the floor.

All for One remained standing, but I could see his legs shaking just a bit.

But a bit was enough for me to know that I was stronger than him.

"I only really came this far because I needed to ask a question. So tell me, Shigaraki," I rolled his name like I would say a disgusting and cheap food alternative or stupid vegan diet. "Did you try to find out about my family?"

Because three months ago, I had to kill more than five villains who were "coincidentally" snooping around my neighborhood simultaneously, looking for a very specific description that fits me the best. Oh, they could have been working for Doctor Bonesaw, but they had other details. Like my other names and a certain ability I only showed three people: him, my dad, and my little sister.

I stared into his unmarred eyes and he stared right back. We knew lying was useless. We weren't naive nor inexperienced, after all. Both of us were readers of people; people knew when others lied.

And so he answered honestly with all of the bravery he could muster.

"I did."

I wasted no time.

He was no longer worth keeping around.

I kicked with the full strength of the combination of powers behind me. Quirk: Hyperhuman, by itself, would have put me on par with some of the better quirk fighters. Combined with Well, I would be far above average. The passive effects of the Quirk: Martial Lord would have put me near but beneath All Might in terms of combat capability because the fantastical aspect of Martial Lord allowed me to do things like "cutting air seventy meters away from me with a blade kick."

But combining them all with Maximum?

It made me a monster that even All Might could not win against. The battle five months was done with less than half of EVERYTHING I had.

This? Right here?

Me striking at All for One?

I put everything into it.

It happened in an instant. The moment I poured Maximum into the rest of my powers, All for One had to use his own quirks to just stay standing up from the abruptly intensified Predator's Aura.

He also knew that I would not be satisfied with simply pinning him down with my Predator's Aura. The moment he used his quirk, he used everything to get himself - and no one else - to safety.

Hell, he didn't even give a shit about stealing Kurogiri's quirk in the midst of it all because he knew - just as I did - that if my next attack struck true, then he would be dead.

With a strength and ferocity that would put a brigade to shame, I struck with a roundhouse kick.

Despite the fact that I was sixteen meters away from him, the pressure from my kick caused the windows to blow out and eardrums of normal humans to pop. In the direction of my kick, the brick walls and the resin flooring ripped and blasted backwards. Koma and Kurogiri died instantly as their ribs shattered and then splattered away.

But I didn't care. All I cared about was whether All for One was dead or not.

When the dust cleared, All for One stood with multiple layers of energy shielding, transmuted walls, and hardened skin.

And I saw all of those because my kick had penetrated everything between me and his hardened skin.

Again, I wasted no time. This time, I punched straight and narrow, aiming for his biggest target: chest.

If the roundhouse was a wave of destruction, then my straight punch was a directed explosion. The remaining bits of the shields and walls blasted away and All for One narrowly dodged the hit by rolling to the side, dodging the two and a half meters of my destructive blow by using a short-distance instantaneous movement quirk.

Everything behind him was not as lucky. My attack blasted through everything. Plaster, walls, resin, people, bricks, air, the building next over, the building behind that, the parking lot's central support beyond that building, and then finally vaporized a tree into a million splinters.

Said tree was over three hundred meters away.

All for One was upon me with nine different quirks, all of them powerful, but I moved faster. I spun and then struck true at his waist with a spin kick. Too absorbed in his own attack, he didn't react fast enough and all of those quirks were rendered useless as they never reached me.

Instead, he struck the ceiling at an angle, blasted through that, blasted through the building's penthouse, and then flew into the night.

I sniffed and then jumped after him. My jump shattered the floor and the pressurized air blasted apart all of the windows from the buildings in the immediate area.

My eyes locked onto All for One and the other debris that flew out with him, and I grinned maliciously. I spun in the air even as my momentum carried me forward towards him faster than he was flying backwards, and struck with another spin kick.

This one, however, was different. I put more into it than the first spin-kick, which I meant to use to put him in this exact situation.

Out in the open.

Nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide.

Right where I could use all of my strength and power without a collateral damage (hopefully).

'[Earth Sundering Kick]!'

And I kicked.

All for One saw it coming, and did the smart thing. He dodged. The same quirk that let him escape my punch tossed him back down to the ground. The air above him superheated for a single second and expanded violently. Everything in that area of my kick in an outwardly widening cone shape lit up for a brief second before the expansion of the superheated air (heated by my kick) stopped and then imploded from the inherent instability in such expansions.

I tanked the hit no problem and flew backward, allowing myself to drift away for a split second before I "struck" the air and double-jumped back towards All for One, who was falling down… and then sprouted wings.

Okay. Cool.

With a mighty flap, he stabilized himself again and put his hands up towards me and fired lasers from his eyes.

"You don't have the license to go Cyclops on me, bitch!" I roared before I kicked off the air, speeding faster towards him like a missile.

"RAWWW!" All For One roared as his right arm abruptly grew and expanded into some abomination giant's arm, and then punched towards me.

I flipped around and struck with a side kick.

Our two attacks connected, and the resulting shockwave broke the buildings below us, killing everyone within it.

The blast expanded out like slow bomb, and whatever building caught in the shockwaves crumbled. People fled in the streets, but too many were caught.

And then it was over.

To most, it ended as abruptly as it had started. There was a boom and then silence, which was quickly followed by screams of pain, sirens, and stampede of people trying to get to the site of destruction or flee it.

For me and All For One, it was just another phase of the battle. The connection of our attacks had thrown both of us back, and upon the ground which had been cratered and flattened by our attacks, we stood, shaking off dirt and dust.

"You will die tonight," he growled as at least two dozen Quirks activated, giving him extra limbs, layers of defense, and other details that I didn't care for.

Me? My Predator's Aura slammed down on the area, and I smelled the intent of those who had been rushing towards us quickly turn from righteous fury into whimpering fear.

"And I will eat your heart for threatening my family!" I roared. I sped forth, spider-cracking the flattened earth with a single push of my feet.

"OOOHHH!" All For One roared as he slammed his giant fist into the ground. Centering on him, the ground seemed to shatter. Chunks of earth flew into the air, shards of stones and concrete became jutting deadly spikes, and the straight path to him for me was broken.

Instead, I punched the air with precision that would have left wristwatch makers in awe.

All For One's head snapped back from the shockwave of my punch's blow, and then his body caved forward as another blast struck his abdomen.

I knew they were doing nothing, only annoying him. Jumping between flying boulders and then launching myself towards him, I came down with an axe kick. The air split with a shrieking boom, and then All For One raised a head guard with his giant arm over his head.

My axe kick met the arm, and cleaved right through. The giant forearm crashed into the ground with enough weight and density that the flattened ground cracked where it landed.

All For One hissed in pain as he teleported backward, only to find me in his face, following him as he teleported.

Sidekick, parried.

Jump-kick, dodged. Duck, punch. Spin kick, parried.

Wind spears from above, spin-kick to neutralize.

Strike, dodged. Double-barrel punch, ducked. Exotic cutting attack, sidestep-!

A huge blast attack!

Duck, jump back, sidestep, parry-.

Sonic blast, punch to neutralize.

Right jab with extended arm with all the force I could muster!

All For One had not time to dodge the last attack and tanked the hit.

It wasn't enough.

"NOOO!" he shouted angrily as his defenses broke one by one until he was left with his body.

And I struck with a push kick, putting enough force to break a small hill in half.

Squelch.

And just like that, All For One laid defeated with my feet through his chest, lying in a wasteland which used to be a Tokyo ward.

He gurgled, blood leaking out of his mouth.

"M-Monster…" he murmured. "A-All M-Might i-is n-noth-hing c-compared t-t-to y-you…!"

I ignored him and pulled my feet out with a jerk, causing his body to jerk as well. "And you will soon be nothing. Because you came after my family." I spat on him, directly into his chest wound.

"C-Curse…. You…." he sighed out his last words… and died.

I stared at All For One's corpse for a second before deciding that I needed to double tap. I lifted my foot back up and crushed his skull.

Then I looked up.

Hundreds of heroes, soldiers, and even All Might himself watched in a gathering of circles. I could taste their bitter fears. I poured Maximize into my Predator's Aura, and the 10 meter and the 100 meter effective radius and the limit tripled. Suddenly, the 150 or so meters that the heroes had been at became somewhere in the middle of my effective radius. The weaker ones crashed to the floor, rendered incapable by my aura alone.

The knees of the stronger heroes bent as they felt gravity seemed to double in intensity.

"You lot want to fight me or something?" I growled.

All Might, being the courageous fool, stepped forward, and despite smiling for the people who were surely watching us (if the distant and weak taste of fear from afar were anything to go by), that smile became strained as he used increasingly more strength to just remain standing.

"Shounen, is that you?" he asked me. "Doctor Bonesaw?"

"Yeah," I grumbled as I dialed the Predator's Aura down. It didn't seem like they were trying to rush me. "What do you want, you dumb old man?"

All Might sputtered before calming down. "... Why did you do this?" he asked, gesturing to the ruined city around us.

I quirked an eyebrow. "Because this dead fucker," I said, ripping my feet out of All For One's ruined head. "Threatened my family."

"... This is still too far."

I laughed. "Nothing else but what I cherish matters, All Might," I replied with a snicker. "He was supposed to be my entertainment but he stepped over the line."

All Might did not look happy with me.

"You can't use other people as entertainment."

"Why not? The public certainly seems to use you as theirs."

"It is different fundamentally from what you said you were doing."

"... Are you here to argue with me or fight me?"

There was a pause. "I do not believe I can win against you. Not if you defeated him so easily."

I gestured to the other heroes. "Even with them?" I asked. It was a stupid question.

"Yes."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I will ask you to stand down."

I blinked and blinked again.

I laughed.

"I was wrong!" I snickered as I tried to keep my laughter contained. "He wasn't the entertainment, you were!"

All Might just watched me laugh stoically.

"And your answer?" he asked me.

I wiped a tear from my eyes and then turned to him.

"Sorry. Can't do that."

"Can we truly not negotiate on this?"

I thought about it. "Well, he is a villain," I gestured to the dead All For One. "All I did was kick and punch." I shrugged. "I defended myself and my family."

All Might opened his mouth, and then closed it. He seemed to think some time about it and then clasped his hand on my shoulder. He turned to the heroes.

They looked hopefully up to him.

He raised a single thumbs-up.

"We're good!"

I scoffed as the heroes cheered. Just how influential and trustworthy was this man that two words was all it took for the heroes from the entire nation to start cheering?

"Well, I'm going to go now. I don't want to get tangled with the media and politics." I pushed his hand off me, but then paused. "Oh, and tell all of your friends not to come after me. Because if they find me, they'll find my family, and if they find my family, then my family will be in danger. If my family is put in danger…" I didn't finish the sentence, but I stared meaningfully into his eyes.

All Might didn't move or change his expression.

"Understood," he replied warily. "But I am only one man."

"... Eh, good enough."

Then, I disappeared into the Dream Realm.


End file.
